


Stick Around Now It May Show

by leobrat



Category: Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-10
Updated: 2011-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-16 20:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leobrat/pseuds/leobrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This...can never happen again...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stick Around Now It May Show

“Teach me how to play slide?”

He’s been in his own world for a few minutes- who’s he kidding, he’s always in his own world. Taylor’s watching him, and she’s doing that...that thing she does. Little half smile, with her eyes downcast. She looks back up at him, and those eyelashes flutter quickly, and for the forty-seventh time today, John feels like he’s been punched in the stomach.

He’d texted her last night, not knowing she was in town. He was bored, and restless and a little bit stoned, and he just wanted... He felt like he was eighty-three, some days. And still like he was seventeen. Why couldn’t he ever just be a grown-up, at the right age? The last time he talked to her, she sent him a picture text of a quilt she was working on, and it made him smile for a week. Who makes quilts? And more and more lately, he’s needed that little something from her. Just a little something, a little smile to keep him going for a little bit longer.

 _little miss taylor, what’s the good word_

 _hey u! guess what!_

 _...i give up...what?_

 _i’m in town for the weekend!_

 _la?_

 _yeah, you want to do something tomorrow?_

And he’d paused, fingers frozen over the keypad. He hadn’t seen her in two months, and that last time he saw her, handing her an award that was his own only a few years before, had stayed with him. He remembered holding her, the way she fit against him, and that moment, on stage, pulling her against him for an all-too-brief moment, panic settled over him, thick and clammy. He’d wanted few things in life the way he wanted to be somewhere off-stage, off-camera with her in that moment. And that kind of want...had always led to disaster with him.

“Fuck me,” he muttered to no one in particular and texted her back.

 _have dinner with me_

And he meant to take her out- to some quiet place in the Hills where he would pay more than a couple hunge just to make sure that no paparazzo got pictures of them going in and out of the restaurant. But she surprises him, by showing up at his house with take-out (and her _mom_ dropped her off, at that), and she throws her arms around him, just like she did that night- why does her chin fit just-so over his shoulder?- and she says, “You want to just hang out? I’m _exhausted._ You wanna play?”

Play?

Oh. Oh, _guitars._

He laughs and shakes his head- what else could he do in the face of such childlike exuberance? He doesn’t feel eighty with her, and he doesn’t feel seventeen, either- but somehow, it still doesn’t feel right.

They’ve been down in his studio, picking at their food, catching up, and _playing_. He doesn’t let just anyone touch his guitars. She got a good idea for a song- well, he hasn’t heard it yet, but he knows it will be a good idea, because it’s Taylor, and her instincts are always right- and he lets her get lost in that. Watching her pluck out a chord, chew on her lip, thinking of what comes next, push her hair behind her ears, and sing very quietly to herself, under her breath, testing out her melody.

Christ, it’s so...peaceful to watch her. When he’s writing a song, it feels like something is pulling it out of him, like it’s something he has to expel before it consumes him. She allows herself to fall into it, and the music wraps itself around her like she’s something to be cherished. There’s an odd, beautiful symmetry in that.

And he drifts off into himself, lazily strumming his trusty Fender, and realizes he’s playing a riff off of _Something._

 _...In the way she moves...attracts me like no other lover..._

“John?”

He snaps out of it, catching her eye, but still finishing off the bridge. “Sorry, baby, what?”

“Teach me to play? Slide?” She grins like an imp, like a cherub, one wheat-colored curl falling in her eyes.

He laughs again, clearing his throat. “Grab the Gibson.”

She jumps up with a little ‘yay!‘ and lovingly returns the blonde acoustic she first borrowed to its correct place on the wall, wandering over to his electrics.

“Yeah, the red one...good girl.” Her body is long, graceful lines as she lifts the guitar down from the wall, and he watches her arms stretch overhead. She radiates a health and a glow, and when she turns to smile at him, she totally dazzles him. He’s seen her dance- long, colt-like limbs flung out in wild abandon and she’s anything but ‘graceful’, but right now... He shakes himself again. “And in that case on the shelf, bring a couple of slides.”

She holds out two metal slides and two glass ones, and he takes the smaller of the glass slides. “These are all going to be too big for your fingers,” he says, as she seats herself across from him. “I’ll get you one that fits before you go home.”

“Which finger do I use?” She sits on the floor, indian-style, like she’s in kindergarten, and he slides off the couch to mimic her pose.

“Mmm, whichever feels right to you, but I use _this_ one,” John replies, waving his fourth finger.

“The wedding band finger?” She asks, and it’s a completely innocent question (look at her, rosy cheeks and soft blue eyes, innocent all over), but it shoots a wave of annoyance through him, quick and unprovoked, and he laughs bitterly.

“Not for me, baby,” and he regrets his fucking cynical tone immediately, but she just rolls her eyes, and slips the glass case over her fourth finger. She tucks her hair behind her ear again and looks at him expectantly. She’s always doing that, and it’s always slipping forward, and more than once, he’s caught himself from following the motion with his own hand, cupping his hand behind her head and sliding his fingers through the unruly curls, so soft-looking. She looks so soft all over. “Okay, so...it’s not really that hard. Make sure you’re holding the slide right over the fret, like in the middle, hold it straight up and down, and just...”

She experiments with it, plays the opening lick of _Gravity_ , and he has to smile again, relaxed, all annoyance washed away. Soon she’s singing along with it, “ _Wants to bring me down..._ ” She grins. “How was that?”

“You’re a natural,” he replies, completely captivated. Why is it always like this with her, this heaven and hell, push and pull, wanting her on the other side of the country, far away from him, and also wanting to snatch her into his lap and keep her with him forever.

He is not meant for forever. He knows that now.

She holds the Gibson out to him. “Your turn now.”

“What do you want me to play?” She shrugs, ducking her head down and giving him that little half-smile again.

Christ.

He strikes a chord, and raises his voice to an unnatural falsetto. “ _Can’t you see that I’m the one who understands you, been here all along, so why can’t you see..._ ”

She giggles at his impression of her, “No, come on, play something nice.”

“That is nice.”

John sighs, and goes back to _Something_ , not singing along, just letting his fingers and strings provide the melody. She leans back against the sofa, closing her eyes, and she has told him that when she does this, she can _see_ the music, not just hear and feel it, and he feels it coming over him. That thing that happens every once in a while, when he exists outside of _John Fucking Mayer_ and all he is is this...gift, this emotion of music that only he can feel. He usually only feels this onstage, thousands of people swaying and singing his songs back to him, but right now, his audience is only one young girl ( _she’s still too young_ ), with her knee brushing against his.

 _In her smile she knows....and all I have to do is think of her..._

“Why’d you sto-”

But he cuts her off by taking her face in his hands, and kneeling close to her, his guitar still a barrier between them. Her eyes widen for just a second, but then she goes still as he brushes his thumb over her cheekbone. Her skin is even softer than he’s imagined (and he _has_ imagined it, over and over, he might as well admit that to himself now). He looks straight into her eyes, and they are the brightest, clearest blue, all innocence, anticipation- but not a hint of surprise. She’s known, in that way of hers that is far too many years wise for her age, that this was going to happen, sooner or later.

* * *

He’d taken his time with her. He knew that this could only happen once- could _not_ happen again- and he meant to savor every second with her. She’d been so... _natural_. Unrehearsed. He’s spent too much time with supermodels and starfuckers who also seem to follow the same tired, practiced choreography in bed.

She was not a virgin (thank _God_ ), but...he knew it was all still very new to her. And she was curious, playful (the way she was with everything) and so very sweet that the intensity of his own reaction to her made him tremble. He doesn’t know if the image of her- sated, with golden curls streaming out around her in the moonlight, will ever leave him. He’ll probably write a song about it every month for the rest of his life.

This is the part that usually makes him feel claustrophobic- coitus is over, he needs to be alone so he can process what he feels (or more often than not, his lack of feeling). But he can’t stop holding her, running his callused fingers up and down her spine, smoothing those soft curls away from her face and kissing her hairline. She shifts against him, and he adjusts to pull her tighter into his side, and he’s almost afraid to speak, afraid to break this spell. He hears her little sigh and then shallow, even breathing. She’s fallen asleep. And protective heat surges through him, swift and fierce.

He pulls the covers over them, rubbing his jaw over her hair. Sleep isn’t too far off for him either, and if this is the only time he ever gets to be with her- _this can never happen again_ \- he won’t deprive himself of one whole night with her in his arms.

* * *

When John wakes up in the middle of the night, he’s alone in his bed. Had he dreamed of her? It wouldn’t be the first time.

The other side of the bed is still warm, still has a faint fragrance of vanilla, so...even his dreams aren’t that vivid.

He pulls on a pair of sweatpants, and heads down to the kitchen, to see if she went for a glass of water, but then...he hears something coming from his studio.

Taylor’s sitting on the floor again, dressed in one of his old tee shirts that’s far too big for her, and her hair is twined into a messy braid. She’s got the same blonde acoustic that she always loves to play when she comes over. And when she looks up at him, she grins like a kid getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar. And he knows he’s in fucking trouble.

“Sorry,” she whispers, and her voice is still scratchy, like she hadn’t been awake for a very long time. “I don’t...I don’t sleep very well all the time, and sometimes I need to just get up and...” she trails off and gestures to the guitar, and he nods. She gives him that impish grin again. “Is that weird?”

Christ. _God,_ he’s in fucking trouble. He smiles, and forces his voice to be gentle. “Not weird at all, baby.”

She ducks her head again, smiling up at him from behind those thick lashes, and...Well, he knows it’s going to happen again. There’s no way he can just *not* kiss her again, not be with her...There’s no way. “You want to hear this?” she asks shyly.

John nods, and sits down next to her.

 _You’re asking me, will my love grow...  
I don’t know, I don’t know..._


End file.
